I’ll try to give better context since you’re coming in blind.

As in many sports, “fired” isn’t generally the term used when athletes are dropped from teams, but it’s true that he likely would have preferred to continue racing at least for his current team, Sauber.

Bottas is generally very well liked, and there’s no indication that there was a personality conflict between himself and Sauber. Unfortunately, this is a very competitive sport and Bottas is nearing the natural end of his career. He has been blisteringly fast before, but was never a serious world championship contender, and the team he’s with have decided to move on with other drivers.

Prior to racing with Sauber, he was a reliable and quick #2 driver at powerhouse Mercedes, cementing them as one of the most dominant teams of all time, and helping them to a string of championships. During this time, one of their fiercest rivals was Red Bull. Red Bull has their own pipeline of talented drivers, and while they likely respect Bottas’ skill, it’s unlikely that they’re interested in hiring aging talent that is firmly associated with their rivals.

If I could use a strained example, it’s a bit like saying that Steve Ballmer of Microsoft wouldn’t get a job at Apple because Steve Jobs didn’t like him. It may be true, but Jobs has no control over Ballmer at Microsoft and couldn’t fire him in any case.

As with nearly everything in astronomic optics, it’s named after people associated with its creation. Robert Jones and Thomas Bird are the two in this case. Here’s a thread on Cloudy nights with good info.

Strictly speaking, the show is somewhat based on a series of novels. There’s an awful lot of story in those that is simply not present t in the musical, but could possibly have been included in the movie. I don’t know if that’s actually what happened, but there’s certainly a canon source for substantially more content.

Indeed, dump truck ass has been colorfully describing big booties in songs and social media for over a decade now.

Technically, TSLA peaked in 2021 and has been already stumbling for 3 years. This does feel like a precursor to a major drop though

I’m actually shocked at the inefficiency of the electric powertrain tbh. An F-150 Lightning gets twice the distance per wh, a Model Y is quadruple. I’m not entirely sure if it’s just simply the size, but the lightning has a comparable gvwr. Just seems weird to me

As OP mentioned, it’s not relevant since he retired, but the seat becomes vacant for a period, meaning one fewer member votes, and results may be affected. There’s generally some mechanism for filling the vacant seat, which can vary on timing (and state law). Generally a replacement can be appointed by the state governor, special elections are held if there is still a substantial term remaining, or the position is held by the appointee if an election is already imminent.

Cool, but tricky. It’d have the effect of simply contracting out loads of positions to sketchy labor companies

In fact, in a few certain situations you can actually purchase higher-end hardware than the pros use. UCI has restrictions on shape and weight that need not apply to non sanctioned riders, and there are improvements that are available in both aero and weight. Notably, Triathlon specific bikes are often markedly faster than UCI compliant bikes due to the aggressive aerodynamic optimization.